FUTURE OF DOMINION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5104, 23 March 1927, Page 4

FUTURE OF DOMINION.

THE COMING STRUGGLE. FO R E WARN ED—FORE ARME D. New Zealanders, like everybody else, have their faults, but they are nevertheless a well-behaved, wellmannered, kindly and hospital people, states a recent visitor. They do credit to their native or adopted land which someone has deservedly called “ Gad’s own country.” I 'have been but a few weeks in New Zealand, and yet I have not failed to observe many of their admirable characteristics characteristics which serve to distinguish them from all other Englishspeaking peoples that I have ever met. They are a free, open-hearted, and honest race, guileless, hard-work-ing (the older ones), and unsuspicous to a fault. Even when engaged in competitive commercial, occupations they are as kindly disposed towards each other as the members of a big happy family. One very remarkable trait which no one .who has travelled in other lands cmild fail to notice is how very tolerant they are of ill-considered criticism. This is so rare a quality in the English-speaking world to-day that it is perhaps one of the first to be noted with admiration by the observant stranger. Even when most adverse and devoid of any justification, New Zealanders will listen' to criticism with a patient indulgence rarely found in any other country. It is a little weakness peculiar to travelling strangers when visiting countries other than their own, to criticise everyone and everything with whom and with which thej' are not familiar, making invidious distincti; ns with an air of patronising superiority that at times becomes positively intolerable. One meets this frequently in New Zealand, and one wonders whether the good-natured tolerance of the people is not to some extent responsible, for it. GREAT GIFTS. Up to the present New Zealand has done marvels, and she will do more, but she must prepare for the big futuie which potentially awaits her; she must prepare- to make the fullest and best use of those coming wings. This is, of course, primarily a matter for her statesmen; but .then, since all. ambitious young New Zealanders are potential statesmen, it should be a matter far every father and mother every son and daughter to start thinking. They should give the most serious consideration, not pjnly to their own immediate welfare, but to the question of haw best ,to serve and advance the interests of their country. Nature has been very kind to New Zealand. It has endowed her with many of its most treasured gifts; it has given her a glorious climate, a fertile soil, rich pastures, and many mineral deposits of great economic value as sources of industrial wealth. Her rivers and lakes have been designed by nature to supply her with an abundance of cheap and constant power, which an enterprising Government has harnessed and distributed all over the land, to be availed of at a moment’s notice in the economic development af the country. The older generation did not 'fail to lay a substantial foundation «n those natural gifts ; they did all they could do, and they may point with pride with their achievements ; even at present big things are being done

too, industrially, commercially, politically, and financially, to help the country to establish her identity permanently in the industrial world. But it is upon the rising generation the brunt of New Zealand’s future battle will, fall, and they should be prepared for it. PREPARING THE YOUNG. The intellect of New Zealand, so far as I have been able to judge, is as bright, as keen, and as quick as any in Europe, or in the world, but even the very best intellects need special training—training to the highest pitch—if they arc not to be handicapped out of the great industrial race for supremacy. Packing children’s minds with great stores of knowledge will not suffice. They must be taught how to use it to the best advantage. They must be taught, if not the political, at least the industrial history of every nation whose methods are worthy of study, and trained, as they are in Germany, and Denmark, haw to apply the pr-Mit derived therefrom to the advancement of their native land. . . .Circumstanced geographically as New Zeland is, and the fact that every succeeeding year her costs of production will increase, it is time she trimmed her educational sails to meet the storm already appearing low down on the industrial horizon. She is already losing millions annually through neglect of her secondary industries. She should wake up and see to it andother obvious drawbacks.